A Turn Up For The Books
by I'm A Cuckoo
Summary: If they were looking at this on some kind of chart, then she was where he had been in fifth year, ruled by hormones and eager to just kiss kiss touch. But he was in seventh year now and time was running out - Companion to Think it over and over and over


_Disclaimer: Anything you recognise is property of JK Rowling._

What do you take me for?  
>Why am I still waiting?<br>Cause while you decide  
>I'm stuck here suffocating.<br>Cause if you can't find the time  
>my bleeding heart won't make it.<p>

Time by Chase & Status ft. Delilah.

* * *

><p><strong>A Turn Up For The Books<strong>

_16th December, 1977_

'Mate, you're staring again.'

A groan, a quick succession of blinks as though trying to dislodge an image from the retinas, a resolute turn of the head.

'I know.'

'What are you doing this Christmas then, Prongs?'

He bit back another groan. As much pain as she caused him, their pity was almost worse in a way. Not the worst thing though. No. The worst thing was that these days he found himself clinging to their pity. Here he was, supposedly an adult and roughly seven months from finishing school and resorting to the pathetic distractions that his friends tossed his way.

'Er. Dunno. Padfoot wants that New Year's party.' He couldn't talk. He couldn't really think right now when she was sat right there talking to Moony about the Prefect schedules. He was floundering. His eyes darted downwards to watch as his fingers picked at the hard skin around his thumbs.

Padfoot pounced. 'Yeah, I've been meaning to show you the list of people I thought we could invite. Stop here a sec, would you?' He pushed himself out of the arm chair and headed out of the Common Room and up the stairs to the dorms.

Wormtail was left now. She was laughing. He was biting the skin at his thumb.

'Who's betting it's just a list of girls' names?'

He laughed. Wormtail looked relieved.

'It's probably just his little black book,' he agreed easily. 'Just doesn't want to start another round of jokes.'

Wormtail chuckled appreciatively at the memory. Padfoot still hadn't really lived that down.

A clap on his shoulder and Padfoot was back, waving a list in front of him teasingly.

He snorted, snatched the parchment out of the air. 'Prat.'

He glanced down the list. Nothing surprising. The Marauders headed the list rather obviously. Three Quidditch teams. All of Gryffindor's and Ravenclaw's seventh years, a selection of Hufflepuff's. No-one younger than sixth year. And there, squashed in between Mac and Emmeline, looking as though she were a hurried afterthought when he knew that she was actually scrawled there inconspicuously, _Lily Evans_. The thoughts came unbidden.

She Floos in. She looks around in amazement, graciously takes the hand that he extends towards her and allows him to lead her to the party. They are inseparable all evening; he goes about his hosting duties and she follows. The party isn't interesting without him. Finally, he has greeted everyone and she hands him a drink. They talk, they joke, they flirt. Ten. Nine. Eight. She lowers her eyelashes coyly. Seven. Six. Five. Four. She is leaning. He is leaning. Three. Two. He can smell her raspberry lip gloss. They're so close.

'No.'

He shook his head in annoyance as though a fly were too close to him. Tugging a quill out of Padfoot's hand, he pressed one firm line across her name and handed the list back to him.

'Absolutely not.'

The scene died in Padfoot's eyes too. 'But, Prongs,' he tried, a small smile itching to come out. 'It's New Year's...'

'Absolutely not.' The tone was harder, the words more brittle.

'It'll look odd if Mac and Em are coming – hell, if the entire _year_ is coming, apart from her.'

'Then invite her, and I'll go to that Ministry thing with mum.'

Padfoot sighed, stared at the list. He avoided Wormtail's eyes.

'You know I don't want that,' Padfoot said as he flicked the quill against the parchment.

'And you know _I _don't want _that_.'

'James.'

He was caught off guard. He was always caught off guard. His eyes widened and flickered past her to Moony's apologetic grimace.

'I just wanted to check the schedules with you.' She nibbled her lip, her eyes fixed on his. He glared at his thumbs, willing himself to just stay in the moment. Just concentrate on now.

Her eyes were imploring him now and he felt that familiar swooping of foreboding. What the hell was wrong with her? Why was she being like this? Why was he so pathetic? He stood up and her eyes followed the movement, resting just a bit too long on his stomach.

'I was just going to bed actually.'

For the briefest moment, she looked annoyed. Then the smile was back. The one that started all of this. 'Well, it won't take a moment. You can still go to bed, I'll just talk you through them while you get ready.'

Padfoot was nodding at him earnestly, quite clearly thinking this was the moment.

This was not the moment that he had imagined.

And so he pulled the sheets of parchment from her hands and turned his back.

'I think I can cope with looking through some timetables on my own, thanks. I'll let you know if I've got any changes before first period.'

He left before he could hear Padfoot's muffled curse.

* * *

><p><em>20th November, 1977<em>

'James, have you got a minute?'

It's just after Tranfiguration and all that he has in mind is his lunch.

Lily smiles her apology. 'Head stuff.'

'Can we not do this 'Head stuff' over a lunch table?' he asks desperately. He hasn't caught up on his sleep from the full moon yet and had skipped breakfast this morning in favour of another half hour in bed.

'I'm really sorry.'

He mumbles something, even he's not quite sure what, waves a forgiving hand in the air and follows her to the Common Room.

It's empty. Of course it is. Everyone sensible is eating right now. He spots a Chocolate Frog on the table by one of the sofas and snaffles it, eating it quicker than even he knew was possible. She is looking at him in silent amazement.

'I'm sorry,' his words are trapped somewhat by the Frog. 'I'll replace it. Moony has loads.'

She smiles, shakes her head. 'So, Moony will replace it.'

He laughs. 'Call it an occupational hazard of being my best friend.'

Her eyebrows raise slightly. 'Oh.' She roots in her bag. Reveals a Chocolate Frog and drops it onto the table. 'That's sorted then.'

He is the one staring in silent amazement now.

'Why did you do that?' He's completely lost. Nothing she does ever really makes sense to him.

'Well, like you said. Occupational hazard.'

'You're...' His eyes scrunch up slightly. 'You're my best friend?'

'I could be more than your best friend.'

He inclines his head. His lips are parted in confusion. Her lips tangle around them. Her hands rest on his chest. His hands act instinctively – one reaches for her cheek, the other for the small of her back. Their lips are too tangled. It will take years to sort this mess out. She is everywhere and he is following. Her smell, that heady, heated smell that she just exudes, is pelting him. He gasps and she's there. Her tongue is tickling his. His hand is losing itself in her hair. Her hands are creeping up to his neck, leaving goosebumps and electricity in their wake. His hand on her back is beginning to dance and she can't help herself. One tiny sound, one little admittance of pleasure. And now he is more earnest than ever. His brain hasn't fully caught up with the events surrounding this kiss but he knows enough to appreciate that she started this, that she wants this. It's all he's ever wanted.

And then it's gone. The creak of the Portrait and she untangles herself from him. She bobs down and retrieves some bits of paper that fell to floor when she touched him.

'Sorry, I'm so clumsy sometimes.' She smiles at him. 'Last week's reports. You need to read through them and corroborate any claims. Dull work, but too much excitement can be a bad thing.'

He is still. She looks at him from under her eyelashes. Something inside him lurches.

'Can you get them done by the weekend?'

He opens his mouth, trying desperately to figure out what's happening.

'Brilliant. I want lunch. Coming?'

He looks at the Chocolate Frog on the table.

'I'm not hungry,' he manages to say.

'Bye.' She didn't stay to listen.

* * *

><p><em>17th December, 1977<em>

He managed to avoid them last night by shutting the curtains around his bed and steadfastly ignoring their attempts to talk to him. It was stupid, he knew that. But Padfoot thinks with his dick far too much and if he and she were going to sort this mess out then they were going to do it without a bed in the room. Padfoot is seventeen. He feels much older sometimes. He didn't just want sex from her. He wanted her. All of her. Without any restrictions. And so he was waiting – desperately, bitterly, achingly, angrily waiting.

He walked down to breakfast with Moony and Wormtail. They reached their portion of the long table and sat down. He was reaching for the toast when he became aware of her. She was sat too close. His heart clenched.

He looked around the Hall, searching uselessly for anything that he could focus his attention on. Nothing. He looked down at his toast but her hand was resting on the table now and it robbed him of his logic. Duty knocked him on the back of his head and he grappled with his bag, retrieving the reports she had given him last night.

'As promised.' He slid them sideways to her.

She beamed. He blinked hopelessly.

'And you haven't forgotten it's our rounds tonight?' She was buttering his toast and sneaking a quick bite before dropping it back to his plate and filling her bowl with cereal.

He had. Of course he had. When you spend all your days concentrating on not concentrating on her, of course you're going to forget that you're required to spend two hours patrolling the castle tonight with the girl who was currently leading you on a cold and futile chase.

'How could he forget when the entire Quidditch team is shouting at him all hours of the day because he cancelled their practice to fit your patrol in?' You'd have to know Wormtail to hear the bitter clangs in his voice.

She laughed apologetically and dropped a hand on his knee.

'I am sorry about that,' she murmured for his ears only. Moony heard of course. He looked over, ready to interrupt. It was pointless trying. He was too far gone.

He was too weak to push her hand away. Too weak to move his cheek just that one inch to the left so that her lips brushed against air rather than his uncomfortably warm skin. Far too weak to admonish his heart when it jittered.

* * *

><p><em>25th November, 1977<em>

For four days, she acts as though nothing has changed between them. She continues along the road of their tentative friendship, tugging him along behind her, covering up for his uncertain stumbles with a bright laugh or a sly joke. He hasn't got a clue what's going on. He's about to.

They have been patrolling for the better part of an hour and nothing is happening. She is bored. He is trying to figure her out.

'James,' she breathes.

He looks over at her questioningly. She wraps her hand into his and steps closer. Steps closer. Can't step any closer. Her breath is warming him. Her lips are teasing him. She melts into him. He shivers with success. This kiss is slower, softer, no less urgent. She grips his shoulders and walks backwards. Her back meets the wall. Her front meets his chest. She smiles.

'James,' she whispers.

His mouth traces her jaw. Her fingers pull at his hair gently. It is too much for him to take. He comes back to her mouth and she greets him warmly. She licks his lips but he is adamant that it is his turn now. Softly, oh so softly, oh so sweetly, he nibbles her bottom lip. She gives in immediately.

It's a new kind of torture for him. Accustomed as he is to this mouth taunting and mocking him, it's somehow more painful when she teases him like this. He pulls away with a rasping breath. His forehead sighs against hers and he is peaceful.

'I shouldn't really kissing you like this before the third date,' he chuckles.

Her forehead is gone. He is leaning too far forward, overbalancing. As per usual.

'Third date?' There is a nervousness behind this laugh.

'Lily?'

'We're not dating, James.'

'I know. Merlin, don't you think I, of all people, know that? And I'm guessing you're not one for sneaking into Hogsmeade even though there's not another weekend before Christmas.'

'No.' She shakes her head. 'There aren't going to be any Hogsmeade dates.'

He moves away now. 'But... you kissed me.'

'Yes.' The defiant 'so' is screaming at him even though it remains unsaid. 'You can kiss people without dating them, James.'

'Why would you kiss me?'

She looks at him in amazement. 'Because I wanted to.' This, in her eyes, is a perfectly reasonable answer.

He is looking at her, lost. His brain is stumbling after the scene that plays out, never quite catching up. 'You shouldn't have kissed me.'

'James,' she sounds unsure. But then a smile, _that damn smile_, slips its way across her lips and she says, 'Don't pretend you don't want this.'

This isn't like her. She wouldn't normally say something like that.

'I want you,' he tells her.

She grins, moves in again. He moves back.

'We were friends. Then you kissed me. Then we were friends. Then you kissed me. Again.'

'It's not unheard of.'

'It's not what I want.'

'What do you want, James?' she says testily.

'You.'

She claps her hands and gestures at herself. 'And here I am!'

'Lily. You know what I mean. I don't want to be a friend that you kiss whenever you can't find anyone else. I don't want to have to lie to everyone and sneak around with you. I don't want to be someone you're ashamed of, and I don't want to do things with you that you won't admit to. I don't want to be that person. You know what I want.'

She shakes her head. 'Isn't this enough?'

'No.'

'Don't you think you're coming on a bit strong?'

'I'd have thought you'd respect my feelings, actually.' He is shaking his head. He doesn't understand.

They begin to walk again. She is awkward. He is flustered.

'I'm not a slut.'

The suddenness of her voice is as harsh as the words.

'I know.'

'I didn't want you to think that I was just after you because I knew you wouldn't say no.'

He flinches at that.

'Shit,' she touches his arm. 'Sorry. That was rude. I didn't mean to say it like that. I meant to say that I like you. I really honestly do. And it's been sneaking up on me for a while now and I just get so lonely sitting with you and talking with you and that day, you were just _too much_. You're always too much, James. I should have known that you'd need more from me. I'm not ready to give that just yet.'

This rejection cuts fiercely at him. He can actually feel his heart squeezing painfully in his chest; its beat too loud as though reminding him in the most forceful way possible of its presence.

'I need time.'

He stops. Turns. Gobsmacked.

'Anything,' he tells her. 'Anything you need.'

* * *

><p><em>17th December, 1977<em>

He sat down heavily when he got to Potions. Padfoot nudged his arm and waited for him to speak. He let his head fall into his hands.

'Am I being a dick?'

The beat of silence was too long for the answer to be honest. 'No.'

He laughed grumpily. 'Am I talking to the wrong person?'

'_Yes_.'

They smirk at each other.

'You could just kiss your way into her good books, Prongs.'

'I'm already in her good books, Pad. I'm just waiting for her to publish the shitting things.'

Padfoot snorted. 'You're quite eloquent when you're in emotional turmoil.'

The lesson passed in a blur. She was there, naturally, but he didn't mind so much in Potions. She was too engrossed in her work to keep up her game and he could revert back to the days when he had looked and looked and looked at her, without having to worry about her taking this as a sign of weakness.

* * *

><p><em>2nd December, 1977<em>

'What if it weren't a secret?' Her hair is tickling his ear. Her breath is tickling his throat. 'What if I were quite open about how I feel about you, about what we're up to?'

The hair rushes past him, the warmth evaporates and she moves from behind the sofa to stand in front of him.

'What then?'

'Are you... Are you saying yes?' How he wishes his voice hadn't cracked on that final word.

'No,' she says with a smile and she sits herself on his lap. She punctuates her word with a kiss. 'Not a yes. A compromise.'

And then she is everywhere again, before he can speak. And Padfoot is whistling and Mac is chuckling and she is sucking, licking, kissing his pulse point.

'Lily.'

She covers his mouth. It's too much. How is he supposed to fight this?

He remembers.

Lightly, firmly, his hands push her away. He is flushed. His neck is tingling and he knows damn well that there'll be a bruise there in a short while.

'No. You know what I want. I can't compromise anymore.'

She is wide-eyed. He can't help himself. His fingers brush his lips. And then he leaves.

* * *

><p><em>17th December, 1977<em>

He took the coward's way out when dinner time arrived. She had been teasing him all day. Somewhere along the line, she had gone from genuinely thinking about his words to manipulating them. Surely, she had argued three weeks ago, this _time_ she needed constituted as them seeing each other? Surely then, kissing was allowed. She needed to make an informed decision, she had pointed out with that smile draped on her lips.

He couldn't do it. He didn't mean to wind her up, and he knew she didn't mean to hurt him. If they were looking at this on some kind of chart, then she was where he had been in fifth year, ruled by hormones and eager to just kiss kiss touch. But he was in seventh year now and time was running out for her to catch him up. She was getting angry with him now. He couldn't blame her – half the time he was positively furious with himself. Try as he might, his reasons that she needed to understand he was in this for the long run, that she meant too much to him to treat as a casual fling, that she was too good to be treated as anything less than the real thing – they all seemed stupid when she was feeling so angry and hurt and rejected.

When his watch told him it was time to eat, he headed straight for the kitchens. The lads would find him so he didn't have to risk being overheard when he told them. They arrived not long after him and sat at their table hidden around the corner while Finchy prattled on at them about how all the house elves were so honoured that they had come to visit.

He didn't join in the conversation. He was already an hour ahead of them, dreading every dark corridor; praying that she would give up this ridiculous scheme and just let him call her his.

Finally, inevitably, Moony said, 'It's time, Prongs.'

'Wish me luck,' he grumbled with a heavy sigh.

He found her outside the library as usual.

'You weren't at dinner.' She looked put out.

'I know.'

'I wanted to talk to you.'

'We've got two hours of talking ahead of us,' he pointed out.

She frowned.

They walked down the corridors. He could feel her eyes on him but he didn't speak. He knew what she wanted to speak about.

He was always going to be the first to crack.

'How was your day?'

'Lovely, thanks. I spent my day looking for this really amazing guy and trying to get him alone, and time after time, he batted me away'

'What did you think of the Transfiguration lecture?'

'I didn't really pay attention because that really amazing guy was sat in front of me and he'd rolled his shirt sleeves up. It was a bit hard to concentrate.'

'Ah, right. I'll lend you my notes then, if you want?'

'Maybe we could go up to your room after patrolling and you can talk me through them?'

'Lily.' Exasperated.

'James.' Determined.

She closed the gap between them and brushed his hair off his forehead with a gentle sweep.

'Lily.' Nervous.

'James.' Tender.

Her gaze was back on his lips again. He licked them. He wished he hadn't. She parted hers. He couldn't take his eyes off them.

'Lily.' Warning.

She kissed him. It was sweet and anxious and everything it had never been before. Her right hand was cupping his face, her left hand was tangling up in his right hand. His left hand was gripping her waist, half pushing her away, half pulling her into him. He pulled his lips from hers and she moaned at the loss. His face buried itself in her neck, kissing his way back up to her jaw, kissing his way across to cover the other side of her neck with his mouth.

'_James_.' Passionate.

He realised, stopped.

She blushed. 'I'm sorry,' she whispered into his hair.

His eyes closed and he sighed deeply, flushing her skin with his frustration. Her hand tightened on his cheek and she lifted his face to look at him.

'I'm sorry,' she repeated. Her eyes devoured his swollen lips.

'Lily, please.' Her eyes flickered up to his eyes. She stared at him, something unfamiliar sparking in their depths.

'I'm so sorry.'

'Please, don't.' He hardly knew what he was saying anymore. He only knew that he couldn't keep doing this. He couldn't keep kissing her, keep needing her, if he was never going to have her. He couldn't give her what she wanted because for once in his life he needed to be selfish. He hardly ever protected himself when it came to her, but she was cutting too deep and he had to stop her. 'Please.'

She stood on her tiptoes, pressed her cheek against his and leaned in so that her mouth was nestled against his ear. She let one small kiss rest gently on his earlobe before she whispered, 'Yes.'

* * *

><p>I'm currently writing a Lily-centric view of their relationship because, I don't know about you, but Lily does <em>not<em> come across well in this little fic. I tried my best to edit it and put her in a better light but I'm afraid I still come across as a vicious Lily-hating lunatic. It's not the case, I assure you. I was working to keep the quoted song above in mind, and because of this, she had to be a little bit pushy.  
>If you did enjoy this, you might be interested to read <em>Those Damn Glasses<em> which is ever so vaguely linked to this story.

Thanks for reading.


End file.
